Dan Pillers has exhibited in California at the San Francisco Main Public Library, San Francisco Center for the Book, and Works Gallery, San Jose, and in Oregon at Mark Woolley Gallery and Mile Post 5 in Portland, and River Sea Gallery in Astoria. He curated Life after Death: Embracing the Queer Widow for the 2001 National Queer Arts Festival. Pillars was the subject of Melissa Murray’s award winning short film, Dan Pillers: Portland Artist, which was awarded 1st place at the 2013 Flux Film Festival. He was an artist-in-residence at La experience in Plaisance, France, a panelist for Art Beat – Social Justice and Art at Portland Community College, and was featured in an article by Andrew Belonski for OUT.com. Pillers received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute.
Statement
Archeologists score big when they unearth an ancient civilization’s dumping grounds. What had been discarded are precious clues about the cultures from which they came. Museums are filled with these curious artifacts.
Over the past couple decades I have been fascinated with blending “artifacts” with “art of fact.” I work with salvaged remnants of things gone by to create a body of work based on personal life experiences, forming a visual memoir.
Working with materials that are gleaned from others’ cast offs is what I enjoy doing the most. It gives me great pleasure to transform bits of old broken furniture and architectural remnants into beautiful works of art. Or as my grandma used to say: “Making something from nothing.”